The big move (Yikes!!!)

[Oscar_Mania]

At the end of August I am moving out of my parent's house and into a house shared with two other people. I'm trying to come up with a moving plan for my fish and I am getting a little scared about this. I have to move a 33g , 10g, and 5.5g tank. It is only a 10 min. drive there, so should I just scoop out some of the water from the tanks and move them with the fish still inside of them? I"m sure my Oscar, JD, and convicts can handle that as they are pretty hardy. The advantage of moving out is that I can now buy my Oscar a 55 g tank that he will be happier in. Should I try to move the fish to the new place first?

[Gambusia]

Snap top bucket.

[MamaBarb]

Oscar - I have moved fish twice - short distances both times.

One time I did a plastic bucket & lid with some water siphoned from the tank I was moving, and the other time I just took some water out of the tank and moved it with the fish still in. I also took out all the rocks & plants, so nothing would fall on them. And I added some StressCoat, to help them out.

They seemed much less stressed staying in their tank, and it was a lot easier to re-estab the tank in the new location. It amounted to just doing a 50% water change and moving stuff around, as far as they were concerned!

They really did not like being captured to put in the bucket. They were breathing really hard by the time I got them to the new loc, set up the tank and got them back in to it. Plus, since I had so little of the orig water & stuff, it took a while to get all my levels back.

Good luck.

[Aquatick]

Originally posted by Gambusia
Snap top bucket.

Ditto! Or see if your local pet store would be kind enough to give you some of the foam boxes their fish arrive in. Transport them in as much of their own water as you can handle. The danger of moving a tank with water still in it is that it was not designed to carry a load and be moved. Too many times I've seen tanks break because people wanted to move them without removing all of the water. If you insist upon keeping them in the tank with a little bit of water in it, try to stabalize the tank by supporting the bottom with sheet of wood that extends out past the edges enough for you to carry it comfortably. Good luck!

[sguthrie]

I moved all of mine in a 10gal rubbermaid container filled with their old water. After I got the fish to their new house, I put a filter on the container. While I was bucketing water from the bathroom to the tank, I took a small amount of water out of the container and replace it with some new water to acclimate them. This process took a couple of hours. All of the fish survived.

Moving a tank and filling it with new water isn't a big deal as long as the fish are acclimated in a way similar to when they were moved from the fish store.

sam

[Oscar_Mania]

Thanks for the ideas. I think I will do the rubbermaid and filter method for my 33g tank because I will have a hard time carrying it even if I do take out a bunch of water. The others won't be such a problem.